All posts filed under: Editorial

The Early Reviews of In The Camps

Published by Darren Byler

The August 9, 2021 issue of the literary journal Mekong Review featured a lead review of two new books on Xinjiang, one which I authored called In the Camps (Columbia Global Reports), scheduled to come out in October (pre-order it now!), and a recent publication titled The Perfect Police State (Public Affairs), by investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain. “In what is the largest mass detention of people from a religious or ethnic group since the Second World War,” writes Robert Templer. “The persecution of the Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and the Chinese Muslims known as Hui brings together four strands of contemporary life: the surveillance society and its facilitation by smartphones; the use of big data; global supply chains; and the idea that governments can take any actions against what they define as extremism. US policies after the attacks of 9/11, including secret prisons, disappearances and renditions without legal process, opened the door for governments like that in Beijing to apply the same policies without restraint.” Templer’s review joins other early reviews of In the Camps. Scholar of contemporary …

Xinjiang Action List

Published by Darren Byler

People often ask me what they can do to engage the issues confronting the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Hui in Northwest China. Here is a list of action items for people who want to get evolved in the United States. In the United States Contact Your Congress Members  Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is currently awaiting approval by the U.S. Congress. This bill will leverage sanctions on companies and key leaders who have been implicated in the camp system, and mandate a detailed congressional report on the global supply chain that supports these atrocities. Call your congress person and ask them to support the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Join Grassroots Movements Boycott and divest from companies and investment funds that profit from Turkic Muslim suffering. As much as 84 percent of the cotton used in Chinese made garments is sourced in the Uyghur region of China. For a report on the Fortune 500 companies that are connected to the Uyghur homeland follow this link. For a report on the investment funds that profit from the …

Chinese Student Responses to the Mass Internment of Turkic Muslims

Published by Darren Byler

Over the past two years I have spoken at dozens of universities and high schools about the internment of what is now an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. I talk to students about the way poor minorities all over the world are marginalized by the language of criminality and terrorism, how policing and surveillance systems disproportionately affect them. I frame this by discussing the way Islamophobia has spread around the world over the past 20 years, resulting in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and, now, an attempt to “reeducate” an entire population of Muslims in northwest China. Undergraduate and high school students in the United States are typically really engaged by this. The use of technology to monitor, profile, and control Chinese Turkic Muslim populations grabs their attention. The arbitrary ranking system that has been used to determine who should be sent to the internment camps often puts them on the edge of their chairs. Telling the stories of seeing my Uyghur friends disappear makes them sad. When I’m talking with these students, I feel like they …

Responses to Unanswered Questions at UC Berkeley

Published by Darren Byler

Editorial Note: Below is a letter written to Chinese international students at UC Berkeley following an event concerning the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims that was held in March 2019. The author of the letter sent it to me after The Daily Californian declined to publish it. Following the letter I have replied to the letter in the hopes that we can open a dialogue regarding what is happening in Xinjiang. I hope readers will feel free to respond below in the comments section. A Question Unanswered On Wednesday, March 6th, 2019, a shouting match took place at UC Berkeley. The Berkeley Law Human Rights Center was hosting Rushan Abbas and Dr. Darren Byler to talk about the Uyghur crisis in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. The lecture hall at Boalt 110, which seats 166, had people sitting in the aisles and standing against the walls. Organizers said it was the best-attended talk in the Human Rights Center’s history. Nevertheless, for fear of surveillance on attendees cell-phone use was forbidden within the room. Rushan Abbas, a thin, middle-aged …